Directed by Byron Haskin; produced by Frank N Seltzer
Matt Brady (John Payne) is an abrasive, hard-drinking, iron-fisted veteran of the Great War, who inherits his brother’s political influence when the latter, Tim (Roy Roberts), dies. While Tim was a benevolent ward-boss, Matt has immense ambitions, and no limit to the actions or behaviour that he will use to achieve them.
While The Boss is a mildly entertaining film, I couldn’t help seeing it as a poor man’s All the King’s Men, which was released seven years earlier. While the latter builds its main character and the premise of the movie over the whole running time, The Boss presents a ready-made corrupt politician, with much of his deal-making and strong-arm machine already in place. In other words, instead of seeing what brought Brady to where he is, we see him already there.
This is a problem with the writing, which gives us short-cuts (as one may view them) providing the character with his corruption already formed, then compounds the issue by having Brady soften as he ages, which usually is not the case with authoritarians. It’s true that his machinations and decadence increase as the story progresses, but he himself develops scruples (or, perhaps, finds them maintained from some earlier point in his life). He eventually reaches the stage at which he is almost sympathetic to those who want to bring him down.
The soft-pedalling of the main character, and its effect on the rest of the movie, is rather mysterious, considering the co-writer (uncredited due to his blacklisting) was Dalton Trumbo, the man behind the scripts for Spartacus, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, A Guy Named Joe, Gun Crazy, and other hits. Perhaps the other writer, Ben Perry, is the blame, though there is no proof of this.
Payne (who was also an uncredited producer) does a good job in the lead role, but portrays such an unlikeable character - filling much of the movie with contemptuous sneers and insults - that he creates no sympathy. Nor does he build much hatred, since the character is fairly one-dimensional (another issue of the writing.) There is no motive given for Brady’s insatiable ambition, nor for his retention of the burdensome wife (Gloria McGhee) he marries when drunk, so he comes across more as a caricature than a character - well played but too broad for the viewer’s interest.
The other characters are even less fleshed out than Brady. William Bishop plays Brady’s crooked attorney; though not the stereotypical shyster, he introduces another problem when his final action in the movie comes without precedent. The rest of the cast is mainly unknown even to movie-fans, except perhaps supporting player Rhys Williams as a crusading lawyer (he played James Cagney’s opportunistic accomplice in Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, reviewed on this blog last month) and Joe Flynn in a very early part.
While an adequate time-filler, The Boss is rather a generic entry in the corrupt politician genre, a pale version of better movies.
